The authors describe a spontaneous case of amyloid A (AA) amyloidosis in an adult female Japanese quail ( Coturnix japonica). The bird developed AA amyloidosis secondary to chronic peritonitis caused by a Gram-negative bacillus infection. Mild amyloid deposition was also identified in the intestinal tract of apparently healthy adult individuals, suggesting that quail may develop intestinal amyloidosis with age. Based on these observations, it was hypothesized that quail can develop AA amyloidosis following inflammatory stimulation with lipopolysaccharide (LPS)...

Bitter taste is one of the basic taste modalities, warning against consuming potential poisons. Bitter compounds activate members of the bitter taste receptor (Tas2r) subfamily of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). The number of functional Tas2rs is species-dependent. Chickens represent an intriguing minimalistic model, because they detect the bitter taste of structurally different molecules with merely three bitter taste receptor subtypes. We investigated the binding modes of several known agonists of a representative chicken bitter taste receptor, ggTas2r1...

BACKGROUND: Consumption of meat contaminated by E. coli causes a serious illness and even death to affected individuals. Recently the emerging of antibiotic resistant foodborne E. coli poses serious public health risks worldwide. However, little is known about the antibiotic resistance profile of E. coli in Ethiopia. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) status of E. coli isolated from different type of meat. METHODS: Overall 292 samples were collected from December 2015 to April 2016 from slaughterhouses to determine the prevalence and AMR of E...

BACKGROUND: Numerous biological functions of long intergenic non-coding RNAs (lincRNAs) have been identified. However, the contribution of lincRNAs to the domestication process has remained elusive. Following domestication from their wild ancestors, animals display substantial changes in many phenotypic traits. Therefore, it is possible that diverse molecular drivers play important roles in this process. RESULTS: We analyzed 821 transcriptomes in this study and annotated 4754 lincRNA genes in the chicken genome...

In order to put forward a method to promote composting start-up at low ambient temperature, the cold-adapted microbial agent (CAMA) was inoculated in chicken manure (CM), and compared the enzymes activities, including urease, proteases, β-glucosidase and invertase, with no CAMA group (CK). In this study, the temperature of CM reached 50°C in 53h, but it in CK was only around 30°C during the composting process. Moreover, the enzymes exhibited higher activity in CM than CK, indicating the effectiveness of CAMA...

Primordial germ cells (PGCs), precursors of functional gametes, offer great promise for the use of genetic resources and transgenesis in chickens. PGCs can be isolated from the developing embryo at diverse early stages and are subsequently expandable in vitro. In vitro proliferating chicken PGCs can facilitate the production of efficient germline chimeras and transgenic chickens. Here, we describe methods to isolate and characterize PGCs from chicken embryos and their application to transgenesis.

In mammals, the introduction of the OSKM (Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc) genes into somatic cells has allowed generating induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. So far, this process has been only clearly demonstrated in mammals. Here, using chicken as an avian model, we describe a set of protocols allowing the establishment, characterization, maintenance, differentiation, and injection of putative reprogrammed chicken Induced Pluripotent Stem (iPS) cells.

Chicken embryo electroporation is a powerful tool used to identify and analyze enhancers involved in developmental gene regulation. In this chapter, the basic procedures and underlying principles of enhancer analysis using chicken embryo electroporation are described in the following steps: (1) identification of enhancers in a wide genomic region, (2) determination of the full enhancer region, (3) definition of the core enhancer regions, and (4) analysis of a functional transcription factor binding sequences in the core region...

One of the advantages of the avian embryo as an experimental model is its in ovo development and hence accessibility for genetic manipulation. Electroporation has been used extensively in the past to study gene function in chicken and quail embryos . Readily accessible tissues such as the neural tube, somites, and limb bud, in particular, have been targeted. However, more inaccessible tissues, such as the embryonic urogenital system , have proven more challenging to study. Here, we describe the use of in ovo electroporation of TOL2 vectors or RCASBP avian viral vectors for the rapid functional analysis of genes involved in avian sex determination and urogenital development ...

Genome editing is driving a revolution in the biomedical sciences that carries the promise for future treatments of genetic diseases. The CRISPR/Cas9 system of RNA-guided genome editing has been successfully applied to modify the genome of a wide spectrum of organisms. We recently showed that this technique can be combined with in vivo electroporation to inhibit the function of genes of interest in somatic cells of the developing chicken embryo. We present here a simplified version of the previously described technique that leads to effective gene loss-of-function...

Cap analysis of gene expression (CAGE) is a convenient approach for genome-wide identification of promoter regions at single base-pair resolution level and accurate expression estimation of the corresponding transcripts. Depending on the initial biomaterial amount and sequencing technology, different computational pipelines for data processing are available, as well as variations of the CAGE protocol that improve sensitivity and accuracy. Therefore, this chapter elucidates the key steps of sample preparation, sequencing, and data analysis via an example of a promoter expression estimation study in chicken development...

With advances in molecular biology, various biological phenomena can now be explored at higher resolution using mRNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) and chromatin immunoprecipitation followed by high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-Seq), two powerful high-throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies. While methods are used widely in mouse, human, etc., less information is available in other animals, such as the chicken. Here we assemble a workflow of the RNA-Seq and ChIP-Seq analyses for the chicken studies using chicken skin appendage tissue as an example...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between age and frequency of left atrial appendage (LAA) morphology in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) compared with sinus rhythm (SR). We enrolled 145 AF patients, and 199 SR patients for the control group without any cardiovascular disease. LAA volume index (LAAVi) and morphology were assessed by electrocardiogram-gated computed tomography angiography. LAA morphology was classified into "chicken wing" or "non-chicken wing" according to the previously described classification...

The pure-tone thresholds of three mallard ducks were determined from 16 Hz to 9 kHz. The purpose was to determine whether the mallard duck hears infrasound, which then may potentially be used for navigation, similar to how it is proposed that pigeons use it for homing. At a level of 60 dB sound pressure level (re 20 μN/m(2)), their hearing range extends 6.85 octaves from 66 Hz to 7.6 kHz, with a best sensitivity of 12.5 dB at 2 kHz. However, at no frequency, including the lowest tested, were the ducks' thresholds lower than those of humans...

Campylobacter jejuni (C. jejuni)-host-interaction may be affected by the host's gut microbiota through competitive exclusion, metabolites or modification of the immune response. To understand this interaction C. jejuni colonization and local immune responses were compared in chickens with different gut microbiota composition. Birds were treated with an antibiotic cocktail (AT) (Experiment 1 and 2) or raised under germ-free (GF) conditions (Experiment 3). At 18 days post hatch (dph), they were either orally inoculated with 10(4) colony forming units (CFU) of C...

Chordates are characterised by contractile muscle on either side of the body that promotes movement by side-to-side undulation. In the lineage leading to modern jawed vertebrates (crown group gnathostomes), this system was refined: body muscle became segregated into distinct dorsal (epaxial) and ventral (hypaxial) components that are separately innervated by the medial and hypaxial motors column, respectively, via the dorsal and ventral ramus of the spinal nerves. This allows full three-dimensional mobility, which in turn was a key factor in their evolutionary success...

Botulism commonly affects water birds and it has recently been observed to be emerging in poultry production. In the present work, outbreaks of botulism in wild native species, such as the black-fronted Piping-guan (Aburria jacutinga), wild duck (Cairina moschata) and its crosses with mallard (Anas platyrhynchos), and domestic chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) are described. Following treatments with a commercial botulism antitoxin CD, 28 (96.5%) out of 29 animals fully recovered after 24-72 h. The antitoxin therapy was shown to be a useful option for the treatment of affected birds, including those that were severely affected...